For Sale: Garden Planet. Barely Used.

It’s been on preorder for a while, but STRANDED, the anthology featuring stories by me, James Alan Gardner, and headlined by Anne Bishop, is finally out in print and Kindle on Amazon and both print and Nook on Barnes and Noble. Three authors, three stories – one theme: young adults making their own way in space. An excerpt from my story, “Stranded”:

“It’s called Halfway Point,” Serendipity said, “because they wanted to do what I want to do: set up a port between those two bubbles, which have grown so they almost touch. Shipping routes are still rerouted, but they won’t stay that way. Halfway Point’s even got a black hole—”

“Oh, wonderful,” Tianyu said. “Sounds like a big KEEP OFF sign to me.”

“Hush, love,” Serendipity said. “The orbit’s far enough that the inner planets are stable, but close enough to power heavy industry someday. In all the galaxy, Halfway Point is unique. I have no idea why it was overlooked, but I’m not about to let someone else step up and claim it.”

They stared at the little blue-green moon, that forgotten jewel, curling around the rainbow pastels of its mammoth mother planet.

“I looked up headstrong in the dictionary,” Tianyu said at last, curling up in a huff. “Your name was all over it: synonym, hyponym, see also, properly capitalized and everything.”

Ah, Serendipity. Best of luck on that new planet. You can check out more of Serendipity the Centaur at her Facebook page, or here, where I’ll be filling in details on “Stranded’s” sequel, “Conflicted,” as I get the story done. The current plan is to collect the first three novellas in the Serendipity story into a single novel titled MAROONED.